'Five Go Off To Camp' - Any factual basis?

[alexl92]

I can remember reading Enid Blyton's 'Five Go Off To Camp' many years ago as a child. For those who haven't come across it or don't remember, Blyton's (fictional, in case anyone's unsure) Famous Five go camping on a remote moorland somewhere in England, and discover an (apparently) abandoned railway yard and some tunnels nearby. In the course of the story they discover that the yard and tunnels are still being used for criminal operations.

The events of the story aren't relevant but I'm curious to know whether there's any real life example of rail networks (presumably industrial?) that would have had marshalling yards/tunnels running under and amongst moorland/countryside? I know for example about the long tunnels under the pennines around Halifax/Bradford but these wouldn't have had yards.

Cheers!

 

[Re 4/4]

I think I remember on Dartmoor on a hike years ago there was the remains of a narrow gauge railway from a mining company. That would presumably have involved tunnels, and some kind of depot and perhaps other stuff for loading the wagons.

 

[randyrippley]

The various moorland reservoirs built in the late 1800s early 1900s to feed Liverpool / Manchester and the Lancashire mill towns would all have had associated industrial rail lines, some narrow gauge, moving quarry stone and spoil.
I believe in places underground tracks were used when excavating the Thirlmere acqueducts - I've seen photos on the web

 

[randyrippley]

On a different tangent many mines would have had narrow gauge railways - e.g. the Laxey tin mines, coal mines reached by adit rather than shaft - the Forest of Dean mines would be a good example

 

[Midnight Sun]

Underground bomb stores would have a wide network of both standard and narrow gauge lines.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Did they find the Strategic Steam Reserve??

 

[yorksrob]

I seem to recall that in the TV series from the 70's, the Fawley branch near Southampton was used for some of the filming. Not sure where they got the tunnel from though.

 

[Journeyman]

It was a theme she returned to in Secret Seven On The Trail, where the intrepid gang foil train robbers who were tampering with points and signals.

Who knows who actually wrote them, though? There were so many books published under Blyton's name that a lot of people reckon many were ghostwritten.

 

[Journeyman]

I seem to recall that in the TV series from the 70's, the Fawley branch near Southampton was used for some of the filming. Not sure where they got the tunnel from though.

I can only vaguely remember that show, it seemed to sit rather uncomfortably between Blyton's laughably old-fashioned writing and the more progressive attitudes of the time it was filmed.

 

[Calthrop]

Who knows who actually wrote them, though? There were so many books published under Blyton's name that a lot of people reckon many were ghostwritten.

My bolding -- that's a new thing on me. Could very well be that this allegation is widespread, and just hasn't come my way -- but I had gathered that though Enid was in various ways an "unsatisfactory person", to use Lewis-Carroll-speak: it was acknowledged in general, that she was a genuinely highly diligent and prolific writer.

 

[Journeyman]

My bolding -- that's a new thing on me. Could very well be that this allegation is widespread, and just hasn't come my way -- but I had gathered that though Enid was in various ways an "unsatisfactory person", to use Lewis-Carroll-speak: it was acknowledged in general, that she was a genuinely highly diligent and prolific writer.

I've seen it discussed in one or two places, not sure how much truth there is in it - I doubt we'll ever know. I have no doubt whatsoever that she churned out a hell of a lot of books! As you say, I think she could best be described as a not-entirely-nice person who was quite paranoid about the people around her.

 

[yorksrob]

I can only vaguely remember that show, it seemed to sit rather uncomfortably between Blyton's laughably old-fashioned writing and the more progressive attitudes of the time it was filmed.

I'd read all the books and enjoyed the programmes at the time. Very catchy theme tune.

 

[Journeyman]

I'd read all the books and enjoyed the programmes at the time. Very catchy theme tune.

I read quite a few Famous Fives as a kid, but I certainly haven't read all of them. This was in the mid-eighties when I was at primary school. I had quite a right-on, lefty teacher at the time - I remember the look of horror on her face when I told her what I was reading!

 

[yorksrob]

I read quite a few Famous Fives as a kid, but I certainly haven't read all of them. This was in the mid-eighties when I was at primary school. I had quite a right-on, lefty teacher at the time - I remember the look of horror on her face when I told her what I was reading!

I can remember my primary school teacher looking a little askance at me when I said I was reading them. I'm not sure about Blightons other works, but I think you'd have to particularly thin skinned to find anything controversial in the Famous Five.

 

[Journeyman]

I can remember my primary school teacher looking a little askance at me when I said I was reading them. I'm not sure about Blightons other works, but I think you'd have to particularly thin skinned to find anything controversial in the Famous Five.

I think even at the time they were written they reflected some rather out-of-date attitudes, but probably not much more than that. To modern eyes, her attitudes to race, gender and class are a bit questionable, but I've seen worse!

I think even at the time she was churning them all out, a lot of her critics considered her work to be patronising and unchallenging, but it did convey a sense of adventure that worked for me.

My teacher should have been grateful I was reading fiction at all, I generally preferred the Platform 5 pocket books at the time.

 

[yorksrob]

I think even at the time they were written they reflected some rather out-of-date attitudes, but probably not much more than that. To modern eyes, her attitudes to race, gender and class are a bit questionable, but I've seen worse!

I think even at the time she was churning them all out, a lot of her critics considered her work to be patronising and unchallenging, but it did convey a sense of adventure that worked for me.

My teacher should have been grateful I was reading fiction at all, I generally preferred the Platform 5 pocket books at the time.

Indeed. Just an enjoyable bit of childhood escapism.

 

[Calthrop]

I've seen it discussed in one or two places, not sure how much truth there is in it - I doubt we'll ever know. I have no doubt whatsoever that she churned out a hell of a lot of books! As you say, I think she could best be described as a not-entirely-nice person who was quite paranoid about the people around her.

Very many creative artists -- even ones on a trivial level, compared with the "greats" -- seem to be found, in the main, not entirely nice. Their high degree of focus on what they produce, can be seen as likely to impair them in the everyday business of living with and interacting with other people !

 

[PeterC]

Going back to the OP in the late 50s and early 60s we used to stay with realatives on the edge of the South Wales coalfield in the holidays. I remember scraps of abandoned standard guage NCB lines still in place and old adits not sealed off. My cousin and I did find an old quarry with its internal narrow guage line in place and one rusted wagon that we tried, uncuscessfully, ro re-rail. The description from the book is an exageration of what was around at the time but is based on how things were are in that period rather than pure fantasy.

 

[randyrippley]

With a title like "Five go off to camp" I'm surprised there weren't complaints from Mrs Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells.........

More seriously considering the one local boy in the book was named "Jock", there must be a strong presumption that the book is set in Scotland

 

[Calthrop]

With a title like "Five go off to camp" I'm surprised there weren't complaints from Mrs Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells.........

More seriously considering the one local boy in the book was named "Jock", there must be a strong presumption that the book is set in Scotland

On the subject of misunderstandings of the title: blame too much reading, perhaps, of Solzhenitsyn and his confreres -- seeing the title quoted, instantly brought to my mind a potential equivalent of the tale set in the USSR at of that era: with the primary meaning of "camp" in that milieu, etc. -- I gather that monstrous though Stalin & Co. were; little kids were generally not forced to confess to crimes, and sent off to the Gulag -- but it seems that there and then, almost anything was possible...

 

[neilmc]

I recall that the Famous Five included a girl named "George" who was clearly suffering from gender dysphoria, preferring to go off adventuring with Dick and Julian as opposed to staying with Anne and getting tea ready. In one book the criminals caught the three of them and were going to spank them all, believing they were all boys, and George refused the get-out she could have had by saying she was a girl, criminals clearly being quite gallant in those days. Fortunately (or not) they all got rescued in time. Sadly Enid Blyton has been sanitised by the thought police these days - maybe George should be rewritten as being medicated with puberty blockers until she is old enough to undergo gender reassignment?

I still suspect criminals are smuggling goods (probably drugs these days) into Bradford and Halifax using the old 8Fs I'm pretty sure were stored in Queensbury Tunnel in 1968, but I'm too old for such adventuring.